McCullough Learns the Hole Truth

The problem when you’re as fast as Sultan McCullough is that you think you can run away from anything, that speed is the answer to everything.

And then USC coaches give you the ball and tell you to get it through that sliver of an opening between two 300-pounders wrestling with two other 300-pounders.

Logic says such a move makes no sense. Get it outside, away from the beef.

“He had to learn,” USC running back coach Kennedy Pola said Wednesday. “He had to understand that in high school, the hole is like this [holding his hands four feet apart] and it stays like that. And in college, it’s like this [again, four feet apart], but it goes like this [slapping his hands together]. And in the pros, it’s like this [four feet], but it goes like this [slapping together, quickly]. At each level, it gets more difficult. You have to make decisions quicker. The problem comes if you tippy-toe up to the line.”

It didn’t seem all that difficult Sunday, when McCullough ran 29 times for 128 yards in the Trojans’ 29-5 win over Penn State.

It was a breakout game for McCullough, and it has been awhile. He spent a redshirt season and one backing up Chad Morton at USC since he carried Pasadena Muir High on his back offensively.

“That’s something people didn’t talk enough about,” USC Coach Paul Hackett said. “It takes time to back into it. That’s one of the things I was so happy to see with Sultan.”

McCullough, the Pacific 10 Conference 100-meter champion who has run the distance in 10.17 seconds, has added weight and strength since the track season, and it’s paying off.

“If you keep pounding and pounding on people, eventually they’re going to get tired of you pounding on them,” he said. “I’ve worked hard all summer to come here and be ‘The Man.’ And if I hadn’t worked like that, you wouldn’t be standing here talking to me.”

USC was planning on “The Man” sharing the ball-carrying duties, but McCullough lugged it on all but five plays involving the tailbacks.

And the best is yet to come.

“Nobody has seen him break it yet,” Hackett said. “We know he can break one on any play.”

But first he had to learn to get those first four yards, through a hole, between two 300-pounders.

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Hackett said that one of the problems quarterback Carson Palmer had Sunday against Penn State involved playing at game-speed against defenses whose intent was mayhem.

“Here in practice, he wears a yellow jersey and you’re not suppose to hit him . . . and in a game, they have bullets and they’re trying to kill you,” Hackett said.

“I think it’s a question of confidence . . . and it will come.”

Palmer completed only 10 of 20 passes for 87 yards and one interception. He was sacked three times. He hadn’t been tackled since he suffered a broken collarbone in last season’s third game, against Oregon.

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Freshman tackle Joe McGuire is being held out of practice because of back problems that he had before reporting to USC.